miniDV is alive and well for *SD* material. But the market is going towards HD, and tapes are just extra inconvenient for that format. The market is going towards AVCHD now.

My own HD camera, the now legendary Canon HV20 (the best-selling prosumer camera ever), is an HDV camera (also using tapes), and this is good choice *for now* because NLEs support it. But in 2-3 years from now, I will be moving to an HDD-based AVCHD one too.

Read my link in the article on AVCHD where I explain the situation more.